Open A Shock of Color

[Keene Ward]

DATE TBD (24 - 26 ish?)

Kalinor, in all its peace and civility, could be summarized in a single word: difficult. Light was something of a commodity, and while The Meadow was constantly basked in the pale light of what the Symenestra referred to as the "opalgloams", the rest of the city was decidedly murky. It wasn't so much that it was impossible to see, just more that the suspended maze of both delicate and durable bridges were dangerous enough to traverse with the assistance of mid-morning light, or at least Keene assumed them to be such, as all he'd ever had to guide him had been the distant lights of the few establishments that were well lit. It had left him rather confined to the quarters he shared with the young animator and the near empty lounge of the slightly off tavern. He hadn't been in the city for very long, and his muscles, scrapes, and bruises had yet to recover from the arduous trip he'd undergone to get there. Scrambling about the spiders' web, while inevitable, was ill-advised in his current state, and so he had spent much of his time in his room and at a table that was more isolated in the corner of the tavern's main floor.

It wasn't that he sought human interaction when he settled into the smooth wooden bench, eyes moving slow and easy over the few staff who would watch him just as easily and even fewer patrons. The city was mostly unavailable to him, and the only things he could truly study were those that were right before his eyes. As far as he could tell, from the limited interactions he had had with the pale skinned, graceful race of the spiderlike people that were the main inhabitants of the subterranean city, Thomas' ideas of etiquette were boorish in the face of their social pleasantries. There was a title for everything, and even their own language seemed a delicate dance of proper poise, soft and whispering, as if anything too loud was an offense best left to outsiders who knew no better.

Of course, as with all things in his life, Keene's quiet observation wasn't meant to last. "What are you looking at?" The voice was gruff, displeased, and inebriated. Though Keene had never been privy to the stereotypes of tavern-goers, the irony that out of all those who might travel the impressive distance and path to the city, there would be one such brawler. The man himself wasn't all that large, something that was no doubt a benefit when traversing the hanging streets of the city, but there was a air about him that suggested his lack of apparent muscle was cosmetic in nature. "Hey! I'm talking to you, fish eyes." Blinking, Keene gave a cursory glance around the room, searching for any indication of an individual with potentially monocular vision. When he realized the man was referring to him, he was a bit late to stay the growing rage of the aggressive trader. "I asked you a question!"

The symenestra raised their brows at the man's outburst, but they made to move to stop him. Physical brawls were not necessarily uncommon when it came to drink, and if the outsiders wished to beat each other to a pulp, they would be there to sell them salves and herbs for the aftermath. Keene, however, wasn't given the luxury of opting out. "When?" His voice was cool and even, unperturbed by the slurred commands.

"When?" He slammed his hand down onto the table's top, the glasses rattling as they shook under the surprising amount of force. "Every damn petching day, that's when!"

A light frown settled on Keene's lips, the other two patrons of The Meadow turning to raise their brows. "I don't-"

"You think you're better than me? Than me?" He waived his had about, vauge, angry gestures thrown to the air with little more sense than a child throwing a fit.

"Why would I think that?" The lack of context gave Keene little to piece together, but it seemed that the puzzle would have to wait. With a roar, the man leaped from his place at his table, scrambling over the benches that separated them as Keene rose to stand, his empty plate in hand. Just as the man reached him, the door opened, one of the symenestra striding over to greet the newcomer. With a quick swipe of the ceramic dish, Keene brought it down over the man's head with a sharp crack. Though he would have preferred it knock sense into the man, it only seemed to daze him. So, without giving it too much thought, Keene's hand curled into a tight fist right before he slammed his knuckles right in the middle of the man's face. Though he felt the skin on his first two knuckles split, the man toppled like a tree, slamming into the silken carpets beneath him as consciousness drifted right on the edge of awareness as he groaned.

oocI hope that's enough of a lead in! Feel free to control any of the NPCs, I don't caaaaare! :D

[Celeste Arumen]

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There was a stunned silence for a moment before the sound of chairs punctuated the air, scraping against the wooden floor. The two men at the trader's flank had clearly taken exception to Keene's treatment of their friend. Both scrambled to their feet, fumbling for their weapons. The rest of the tavern scarcely had a moment to react.

"Isn't that enough?" A distinctly human voice said. It was eerily disembodied, seeming to come from below eye level.

Both men slowed, startled by the interjection. Dumbfounded, their eyes roamed blindly from corner to corner. It was then that the lynx, who'd done well to keep out of sight until that moment, loped quietly out from beneath the very table Keene had chosen.

A talking lynx? Sensing the unholy presence of magic, the traders-turned-thugs eyed the creature warily. The sudden lapse in momentum gave both a chance to reconsider their position whilst their friend lay groaning on the floor. The lynx glanced back to lock eyes with Keene for a moment before it sat back on its haunches, turning to address the men in the midst of their waffling.

"This man is a very good friend of mine. I'd suggest you'd heed the lesson he gave your friend, or I'll teach you one of my own." It was so odd, hearing common from the mouth of what was clearly an animal.

That was all it took. Murmuring angrily, they moved to hoist the trader from the tavern floor and drag him away, presumably to their quarters. All eyes were on the lynx. It merely licked at a paw daintily. Most onlookers turned away from the spectacle before something very disturbing began to happen. The creature began to shift in an exaggerated way. It grew in mass. Fur was suddenly replaced with flesh. Bones cracked and groaned quite audibly as they shifted to accommodate a bipedal form. It was obvious that this was no kelvic transformation. This was the work of djed manipulation and practiced, at that.

Suddenly, in place of the lynx stood a young boy, no older than fourteen. He was whippet thin and about as tall, with close cropped turquoise hair that faded to deep navy at the edges. His features were sparse and aristocratic and in lieu of his bare flesh, he was clothed in velvety tunic and hose, in the same vivid jewel tones of his eyes.

What was most disturbing were that his eyes bore the same feline slits as the lynx once had. It was an obvious nod to his mentor, the Warden Riyanna. Celeste grinned and it became obvious he'd chosen to keep the fangs, too. Any remaining spectators turned away with a shudder. This was no boy at all, but rather a strange and ethereal monster.

"Good afternoon. Or is it evening?" His brows raised in good humor. The voice that escaped his lips was androgynous, but touched with the beginnings of puberty. "Being underground can be a bit disorienting."

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[Keene Ward]

As the other men rose from their seats, Keene's eyes calmly flicked between them, the dull pain of his hand centered on the small, crimson lines across where he had struck the other man down. Without magic, he was at a disadvantage. In Sahova, he would have frozen the men's feet to the floor before calmly leaving the room and letting them think about their actions on their own. As it stood, however, he wasn't sure what sort of standing magic had within Kalinor. From what he had gathered in his short time there, there was no abundance of the arts, if any presence at all. Thomas Cosa had been not only a familiar face but the one one possessing any sort of arcane prowess at all, as far as he had been able to discover. The symenestra of the Meadows had auras untainted by the warp of djed manipulation, and even the few visitors he'd observed had been relatively mundane in that regard as well, though there had been a few with the slight, silver shimmer of what Keene theorized to be the glean of spiritism. As a slightly below average human being in terms of physicality, Keene was not only outnumbered but outmatched as well. His skin tingled slightly, djed preparing to pull itself away from him to form a barrier to keep his body safe should either one land the inevitable strikes that were intended for her person.

Only, the magic never formed. It never needed to, and, even if he had wanted, the large feline was more than enough to break his concentration, the proximity alone forcing him to take a step back in uncertain defense. The voice wasn't particularly threatening, but when paired with the angled, furred visage, it was only a half-tick before it was registered as that of a wizard's, making it infinitely more complex if not outright dangerous. Keene's lips turned into a frown, though his eyes remained untouched by the expression as the morpher turned to meet his steady gaze. There was a flicker of disapproval in his stoic, pale-green gaze, but he kept his words to himself. At least, until he started shifting.

On the prairie, the use of the visceral magic had been something interesting, fascinating even, and Keene had watched with firm stares and careful observations as both Kinapak and his partner had altered their forms, sometimes exaggerated forms that altered their entire bodies, other times simpler changers, subtle but effective for the purpose they were to serve. The boy, as he revealed himself to be after a half chime of fluid, though certainly unnatural movements of his bones and muscles, was as garish as the people of the city of illusions that Keene had been quick to leave behind. In fact, he was, essentially, the city had it been given form, from the gaudy, glaring turquoise tones of her hair to the equally brilliant glitter of his chosen attire, something that was more that enough for Keene to knit his brows in thought over. As far as he knew, the magic the boy employed wasn't able to create anything that was not biological in nature, which meant that either Kinapak had lied - which was entirely possible - or there was another force at work.

Whatever the case, when the morpher deigned to greet him, he was met with a stony stare and an equally marbled voice that held little in the way or warmth or cold, a lukewarm string of words in a simple question. "Was that necessary?" He referred to the ridiculous display of magic, his assistance with the would be aggressors was, for as much as Keene was aware, appreciated. Other still cast looks over their shoulders, the boy's claim to be his acquaintance - no, even more unfortunate "friend" - gained him suspicion enough to answer at least one of the questions he'd been wondering: magic was as unwelcome in Kalinor as it was in most any other place. The damage already done, Keene sat back down, running a pale finger over the cuts on his other hand as he observed the boy, making no move to invite him to join him, though his lack of refusal of his presence was as much a bidding as any.

He had cost him his anonymity, or whatever had been left of it after he had retaliated against the first man's drunken rage, and as far as the young mage was concerned, the chromatic mess of colors that thought to imitate the image of a boy owed him a share of answers, whether he knew it or not. "How are you clothed?" His voice was soft, as it always was, and there was only enough volume to send the words far enough that they would fall on the morpher's ears and little else. Eyes scanned the garment, looking for any indication of where it connected with his skin, perhaps an extension of velvet hair woven finely under the command of his altered djed, his own magic rising within him. The djed was pulled along a familiar path, funneling through his careful guidance as it was fed to his senses, a hint of warmth filling his face for tick before he blinked his auristics into effect, eyeing the clothes over the far more impressive aura of the boy within them.

What he saw, however, was just one complete, radiant glow of pulsing life. There were, unsurprisingly, sharp bolts of color that seemed to wrap themselves around the core of his being, like snakes they shifted and writhed, only there was little malice to them. They held a sense of searching more than malevolence, as if they had been displaced and couldn't quite find where their proper place was; it was similar to Kinapak's aura, in that the glow was uncertain, not in that it lacked confidence but in its fluid, ever changing state, as if many of the original limits of its form had long since been forgotten. As for the clothes, as far as he could tell, lips turning in a slight frown of concentration, there was nothing upon the boy's body but skin, bone, and muscle. A thin, bright azure light hung in an almost halo about him, tinting the psychedelic colors, though having no taste; that was the oddest part. When he focused on the boy's main aura, there was the distinct flavor of citrus and blackberries, very likely the boy's pleasure and, if the crisp undertone of mint was what he thought it to be, mischief. The blue, however, was empty. It had no scent, no song, no flavor, but there was a power to it that was oddly familiar: the touch of a god.

Letting a slow breath slip from his lips as he pulled the djed back, settling it evenly throughout him once more, the strain of his stare had left a slight ache in the backs of his eyes, but otherwise the short investigation had been enlightening and well worth the minor discomfort. "Or, maybe the better question is who clothes you." His amendment wasn't so much a question as a statement. Though he had certainly seemed intent in his magical investigations, there would have been little in the way of emotion in his eyes. He was interesting, certainly, but unlike Thomas Cosa, the boy did not have the sense to keep his magic hidden. Foolishness, in whatever form, was something to be kept at arm's length at best, as far as he was concerned. "What do you want from me?" Though the words might have been considered aggressive, the tone was anything but. If he had chosen to to situate himself underneath his table, he had either done so out of a premeditated desire to meet with him, or it had been an unfortunate stroke of ill-luck, the latter unlikely but not impossible.

[Celeste Arumen]

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The boy grinned wider still, seemingly amused by the question. Mages were the same all over; you were lucky to find even one that didn't take themselves too seriously. He folded on to the bench next to Keene, for all the world looking like a lost prince of Alahea.

"No, not strictly speaking." He gave a non-committal little shrug. "Though it helps to maintain some level of transparency with local folk. Mages are eccentric and to be feared. They'll maintain a polite distance and divine their own reasons for my being here." He eyed the man opposite levelly as he provided his explanation.

It was only natural that he'd employ his painfully limited auristic power in kind, not that he was aware of whether Keene had or not. It first took looking inward at his own fine tapestry of djed, a melange of prismatic threads that shimmered as vividly as the iridescent webs of the Symenestra. Once aware of what laid within, he focused from between clenched teeth on what laid without. It took a few moments but with considerable effort, the hazy outline of Keene's aura came to bear, radiating outward about an inch or so in a bland lather of energy and smoke.

The first impression was very cold. Keene's aura was fresh like peppermint candy and predictably, white as snow. In fact, the whole of it reminded the boy of a wisp of cloud for its lacks of opacity. As he looked longer still, currents of energy crackled through the formless mass, dappling the flesh at the back of his neck. It reminded him of a stormcloud. Beneath this cold exterior hid depth and sensitivity, clearly. So much that he could very well feel the electricity in his teeth.

A sharp pain lanced through the backs of his eyes and he let go of the sight, feeling the ache even after the vision was gone. He was not wrong for suspecting the man to be a magic-user. The look of his djed was a dead-giveaway but he'd hardly been able to go beyond the surface. What did this man do, exactly? Whatever it was, his head hurt. Two disciplines were challenging when used in tandem.

During his inspection, Keene had asked the question. But the moment seemed to pass as they scrutinized one another. It was only when Keene made the correction that gave him away. In response, the boy's grin grew even wider. He reclined back on his elbows somewhat rakishly.

"I see you've no shortage of talents," he replied softly. "Who can say? Leth, Akajia or Ovek?" His grin lapsed into an enigmatic little smile. "You clearly have all the answers. I'm interested to see how long it takes you to put them all together."

Of course, that was not all. It was his turn to do some of the questioning. He admired Keene, from the close crop of his sandy hair to the placid waters of his steely eyes. He was attractive, close-mouthed and eerily calm. If there were ever an opposite for Celeste, it surely would be Keene Ward.

"What brings you to Kalinor?" He asked. "It isn't often that I find such a kindred spirit." He was bluffing, but sometimes it helped to go with the flow. There was no telling how powerful the little boy was or how much he knew about Keene to start with.

"Call me Chroma," he supplied, leaning back up to rest against the table. "And you are....?"

He looked at the Wizard expectantly.

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[Keene Ward]

The explanation wasn't entirely illogical, though Keene's perpetual shallow frown indicated he disagreed, though no words nor moves were made to explain his own, stoic displeasure. As far as his eyes revealed, the display was little more than something that had happened was over with, the pale-grey stare little more than one of casual observation. Internally, he couldn't quite decide if he agreed with the morpher's verdict of outcome or not. In his experience, magic was best kept secret, even from those who practiced it. Mages were hardly trustworthy creatures, and while Keene was of a mind of equality in trade in both knowledge and skill, it was something best controlled and not freely given. Fear was hardly a useful tool when it so often produced unexpected results. It was better to understand not only the cause but the outcome as well; what the boy had done was simply reckless, whether his nonchalant attitude wished to play it off differently or not.

His auristics, while imperfect, seemed to have given him a solid clue in the mystery of the boy's clothing, but little other hints were given in reply. The gods listed, however, were mostly unknown. The only one familiar that of "Leth"; as far as Keene was aware the other two were just as likely if not both involved. Shaking his head in reply, Keene kept his gaze level and steady, eyes more reflective than anything useful in what he was thinking. "Answers are empty without the proper information." It was possible, he supposed, that the boy knew what Keene was capable of. There wasn't any true indication of whether or not the blue-haired, slit-eyed child had mirrored Keene's own augmented investigations, but it could have been done at any point when Keene was too preoccupied on his own investigations. If that were the case, it was possible the boy invited Keene to try to discover which god, but without a frame of reference, Keene's statement held true: he could investigate and answer all he liked, but it was ultimately pointless without the name.

Rather than pursue the line of thought any more than he had, Keene simply repeated what was, almost certainly, the boy's alias. It fit far too neatly for it to belong to a practitioner of so wild and volatile a personal magic. "Chroma. I see." His breath left him in a quiet sigh before he drew breath again, brow only rising slightly as he regarding the aptly titled childling before him. "I wouldn't say 'kindred' is correct." Whether or not they shared the secret of magic wrapped up in the very nature of their djed, there was little else about them that was even remotely similar. "But my name is Keene. I came to Kalinor to..." He drifted off for a tick, uncertain what the actual reason was. Thomas Cosa had asked the same, and he had had plenty of time to think on the matter in earnest on the journey to the subterranean city. Still, there was no simple, concise manner in which to intimate why exactly he'd traveled nearly half the world to test the ties of fate and find his own. Instead, Keene finished with a simple, "Find something."

The manner in which he said the word "something" suggested that it was not a particular object, person, or thing, rather the ambiguous concept of what "something" was. Whether it was properly denoted in the soft, even tone tempered by his cool, level tone, however, was debatable at best. "And you, Chroma?" He spoke the words as he let his gaze shift from the boy's face to the room around them, his body already situated such that he was more naturally inclined to simply stare towards the ornate desk behind which vases with flowers were kept, the "keys" to the various rooms as he remembered the. The patrons of the tavern all shifted in their own way, some quickly staring down at their glasses, other quickly starting into lilted conversation, but all in all, Chroma's little display had had the desired effect, at least for the time being. He had no guesses, and so he ventured none, instead turning a sideways glance towards the boy as he watched a pair of the Meadow's symenestra attendants whispering quietly to each other, their eyes unaverted and filled with a stern wariness.

[Celeste Arumen]

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Keene didn't let on much, that was certain. He was just as his aura implied; white and pure as alabaster and just as unfeeling. There was so little inflection in the way he spoke, such nuanced expression to his face. He studied the man distantly. Still, there was that electricity underneath, hidden beneath the gentle diffusion of his wintry spirit.

The more he reflected on it, the more his intuition bore fruit. There was a powerful emotion inside of Keene that he intentionally kept at arm's length, a hidden storm that he was only peripherally aware of. When it suited him, he used it to his advantage. But ultimately it was pushed down deep where he wasn't forced to acknowledge it. Gods, how he yearned to take a deeper look at the man's aura! This situation was reminiscent of Annalisa. The shame and guilt of her betrayal seemed to manifest in a similar fashion.

Was it guilt? Was he guilty of something? It was hard to say with little to no personal information.

"A pleasure to meet you Keene," he replied evenly. The corners of his mouth faded to a placid line as he assessed this new development. To say that Keene wasn't particularly volunteering would be a grand understatement. But was that really intentional? Did he mean to keep his purposes a secret or rather, was he truly unable to give a definite reply? After all, Chroma was in a very similar situation. It was possible they were more kindred than first thought.

He cast a cursory glance at the rest of the tavern. They were a few covert looks and a bit of whispering, but that was the extent of the aftermath. With any luck, even that interest would fade.

"I happen to be here for the very same reason," he said nonchalantly, though there was obvious subtext there. The whole interaction almost felt like a game of give and take, both parties trying to assess the other without giving too much away. The boy leaned forward against the table. His velvety tunic was conspicuously silent in spite of the way it gathered around his narrow frame.

"I'm looking for something," he said, scarcely above a whisper. The barmaid, a willowy Symenestran girl paused as she passed. He seized the opportunity. With his forefinger and thumb, he order the pair of them drinks. She eyed Chroma and to her mysterious little smile, he grinned broadly in reply.

It only took a few chimes to draw up a couple of pints. In the interim he studied the planes of Keene's face, quietly committing him to memory. Maybe later on he'd attempt to copy his form. That could possibly become useful, down the line. Impersonating someone was a great way to cause a bit of mischief and he definitely looked like he could use a bit of levity in his life. Not that it was likely that he'd find it very funny.

"He's paying," Chroma volunteered as she set the frothing mugs down on the table.

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[Keene Ward]

As the boy pulled himself closer, two things ran through Keene's mind in rapid succession. The first was that there was no sound from the embellished tunic as it was pressed against the sturdy, smooth wood of the table, something he might not have noticed had his attentions not been sent into a sensitive state as Chroma shifted from a comfortable distance into a far more vexing position. Immediately, Keene felt his hair stand up on end as he shifted in the opposite direction, eyes turning his gaze from the two symenestra to focus with an austere regard of the colorful boy as he whispered an echo of Keene's words, though the meaning seemed wholly estranged from what the cold young man had stated only a few ticks before. He didn't reply to the statement. Instead, Keene merely regarded the colorful Chroma with a frown as the waitress was beckoned over and sent of without a word.

In the time it took for the pale woman to return, Keene matched Chroma's own investigations with his own. He had already checked the morpher's aura, and while there was certainly more he might have learned from it, the unexpected shift in proximity had set him on edge enough that he preferred his more mundane faculties to the augmented, singular nature of the concentration he was able to achieve with the use of his auristics. There was a light in Chroma's slit eyes, one that Keene matched easily to the similar glimmer of a certain maledictor right before she did something wholly inconvenient. Ignoring it, as he had little power over whether or not the child would act on the flickering notion behind his curious grin short of executing him - which was certainly an option but one that held several complexities that Keene wasn't quite prepared to deal with -, Keene focused instead on the boy's features.

He was feminine in that the angles of his jaw, the curve of his lips, the dip of his nose, and the shape of his eyes were all soft, though not for any lack of strength. If anything, they were placed in such a way to carefully convey childhood's end rather than the true from of a young boy. There was too much intelligence in the eyes, and the manner in which he held himself suggested that, though he was quite comfortable in his skin, it was, perhaps, not quite the exact shell the djed remembered. Though he only understood morphing in theory, having only ever experienced it once under the effects of a potent potion, memory was key in stabilizing one's form. The more one changed, the weaker the memories, until the djed was little more than dough to be molded by a faceless will. He wondered how many times the boy had changed; even Kinapak had never looked the same twice - his eyes had always shifted slight colors or his musculature shifting between sturdy bulk and lithe athleticism. If Chroma had changed even half as many times as the morpher initiates he'd come to know - but certainly not understand - he imagined that it was entirely possible there was no longer any "real" form, only whatever the entity before him chose to occupy, something that was echoed by the swirling, almost lost, colors of his aura.

At the not-quite-a-request that he pay, Keene pulled the money from his purse, carefully placing the coins into the woman's outstretched hand without his fingers ever once brushing against her own. She offered him a polite bow and a, "Thank you, Krovard." before turning to tend to another table, one that was occupied by a few hunched figures who had decided it was best to just ignore the prismatic child and his stony friend. Eyeing the mug of ale for a tick before turning back to face Chroma without ever once making a movement to indicate that the drink was his, Keene decided to venture a few more questions, choosing payment for the answers in advance with a few of his own. "I may not know what my 'something' is, but do you?" He paused, the question soft and cool like the rest of his demeanor, save his pale-green eyes that held steady. "And why here? I was brought to the city by a series of circumstance; are you the same?" There was just the slightest hint of a greater curiosity behind his words, as he found it strange that two mages should meet in so distant a place from where he imagined the magically inclined to be. Sahova, Zeltiva, and even the rare few mentions of the magical city of day and night tucked away in the mountains of some unknown region, all of them were hardly the silk filled, suspended city of Kalinor. Coincidence was always a possibility, but even Keene wasn't so blind as to deny the woven web of fate when he found himself trapped within it.

[Celeste Arumen]

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"Yes," he replied in a voice so quiet, even Keene would strain to hear. It escaped his lips almost unbidden. Chroma could see how the hands of fate moved for a brief, transient moment. At this, he had a vague notion of two clockwork gears meeting for the very first time. As they turned, they powered some great unknown vehicle of destiny, together.

"I too was brought here by a series of circumstances," he said quietly. This was the definitive moment. In order to leverage real answers from the Wizard, he'd be forced to reveal things about his background. That was the real risk. The Symenestra speculated about them, maybe even detested them but ultimately, they'd do their best to put on a good show even in spite of the magic. They had a reputation to uphold.

This man however, this Keene. He was the real threat.

Making an executive decision, the boy glanced around the room once before he began to whisper.

"Tell me Keene," he began. "Do you know anything of an island called Sahova? It's the remnants of an old Alahean fortress, used for magical experimentation, or so I've been told." He looked at him with some significance.

"Those who apprentice there either learn their magic quickly, or they die. Many of the more talented folk that I've encountered seem to possess knowledge of the place. If you'd ever been there, I'd be interested to know your impressions." He took a long draw from the frothing mug before him, allowing Keene the space to consider what he'd said. No doubt he was giving all his secrets away. Chroma felt his heart quicken within the bone barrel of his ribcage.

Once he was done drinking, he set the mug down and mopped the foam from his lips with the back of his wrist. There was a distinct lack of etiquette to the gesture, as if he was unfamiliar with handling tankards of ale. Meawhile, the alcohol settled headily at the pit of his stomach. He should be careful not to get drunk.

"In particular, if you know anything of their Testing Grounds." the boy added, trying to keep his voice steady. "The living are often sent there, I'm to understand."

He was desperate to know if anything had happened to Riyanna.

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